The Business of Aerial Photography
Following the end of the war, the aerial camera was turned to non-military purposes. Sherman Fairchild took a series of overlapping photographs and made an aerial map of Manhattan Island. This aerial map became a commercial success and was used by several New York City agencies and businesses. Deals with other cities followed, as they found his aerial surveys to be faster and much less expensive than a ground survey. Aerial photography was shown to have civilian uses and could be a successful commercial venture.
Aerial Photography from Airplanes
The first aerial photography taken from an airplane was in 1909, by Wilbur Wright. He was in Italy, engaged in marketing planes to the Italian government, when he carried a passenger who took motion pictures of the military field at Centocelli, near Rome.
During World War I, aerial photography soon replaced sketching and drawing by the aerial observers. The battle maps used by both sides were produced from aerial photographs, and by the end of the war, both sides were recording the entire front at least twice a day. Cameras especially designed for use in airplanes were being produced, including thermal infra-red detectors. Stability and shutter speed remained a problem, and towards the end of the war Sherman M. Fairchild developed a camera with the shutter located inside the lens. This design significantly improved the quality of the images, and became the standard for aerial camera systems over the next 50 years.